


without a word, snapped out, made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity

by Radiolaria



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 20:13:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a non-fairytale.<br/>In which the Princess kills the Prince, and nothing happens after it started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	without a word, snapped out, made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity

**Author's Note:**

> An old musing I decided to publish. Sappy and twisted.
> 
> Title from The Great Gatsby (No, I didn't see the film and do not intend to)

It does not start with once upon a time. It never was.

 

The world in which River Song kills the Doctor does not exist.

If Mels kills the Doctor in Berlin, she does not become River Song.

She does not send a message to the Doctor, a message to come to the Library and four thousand and twenty two people are still stuck in the data core.

Two archaeologists, not Dave, not Anita, together with Mr Lux, Miss Evangelista and Proper Dave die in the shadows, none wiser about what kills them.

They die alone and afraid.

She does not ambush him at Asgard and lift his spirits up before he meets Lady Christina de Souza. He is a ghost by the time he wanders on the dead planet and, disinterested, lets her in the hands of the authorities. River never was to show him how to blend perfectly scandalous and gracious.

The world ends. He survives.

When he crashes into Little Amelia's garden, newly reborn, he does not need to fix any crack in the wall.

Because there is no crack in the wall.

Because the fabric of the universe is not breaking.

Because the TARDIS never exploded.

Because the Silence never attempted to destroy her.

There is no need to. No Doctor.

There is no tool so. No River.

Thus, he does not need to come back, not five minutes later, not twelve years later.

Little Amelia has no mad friend by the name of Mels, no imaginary Raggedy Doctor. She waits in vain.

Little Amelia never travels time and space in a mad box of the bluest blue.

She dreams and adulthood eventually cures her.

Amelia marries Rory Williams.

They are happy. But just. They could have near-deaths and stars. Or near-stars. Literally, in the Major galaxy.

Perhaps they would not have wanted near-stars.

A companion the Doctor finds, a blond boy of zing and grace. Their adventures are wild and he falls in love, again, as with every companion. But not quite.

The Ponds are no Ponds. Williams, they grow old together. Leadworth grows old with them.

And their life is just as exciting. But they are not aware of that. They are not even aware of what they did not have. Those trails of thoughts are the privileges and burdens of the Doctor.

Who sees and catches glances of honey curls and blaster guns, billowing across time, between nowhen and good-bye, and entwining with his name. He is sometimes frightened, sometimes fascinated, but their twist and turn in the would-have-been never hold his attention for long and he shoos away the stupendous curves of her name.

Like a moth.

Amelia and Rory Williams have a little girl called Louise, no Melody, no Song, and a little boy called Tim. Not Anthony like the Roman emperor.

April 22nd, he catches flies on the riverbank of a faraway planet. It’s every day. He plunges and seeks, but the billows of light are not there, to nag him, to tickle him. He lost them long ago and forgot them. One forgets dreams. So easily. And they are restored to us, jealously guarded, only in sleep. Or death.

His companion, near ever-loved, has left him for a career in life.

He met a brunette on Earth, the ordinary extraordinary kind. Doe eyes and funny nose, and words so fast they fly away before he hears them.

There was a time he had the patience to catch dreams. Words are fickle. He does not stop for her.

The Williams extinguish. The Clara Oswald lives to her nineties.

He would rather meet his name. He does not remember it. Does not remember, does not need to. Why would he need a name anyway? 

River is not made of Amy and Rory, a girl who waited and a centurion. River is not made of time and ladder games, of TARDIS’ dreams and avengers’ hatred. River is not made of buses and bullets, of filthy orphanages and glowing dark alleys. Not made in New York, or Leadworth. Not even Berlin. River is not made and unmade by a kiss. River is not made by bars and books, water and forest. River is not. And students are longing for a magic teacher with mystical smiles and blue diaries. And guards on a distant planet in a stormy castle of cement and locked doors are bored. And Leadworth sleeps, Leadworth snores, like a trooper.

And another thing is not born. That non-day in Berlin.

History has blind spots. Apparently Olympe de Gouges dies with her head on her neck and the National Gallery contains not enough nudes.

One would never have expected William Shakespeare to write so few sonnets.

Nor Shah Jahan to settle for granite. The Doctor would have preferred white marble. Pure and cold, like the heart of his ship.

There is a laugh not running the TARDIS. A sweet name not carving the oldest cliff face in the Universe. The first words recorded in History are a number of sheep on a pebble and he knows what it means.

The Universe is vast and complicated and ridiculous and the Doctor does not know why the reddish colour of the Taj Mahal or two words on a pebble makes him sad. But it does.  

Not tear-sad, not brooding-sad. Just I-missed-a-shooting-star-sad.

How does one call back a shooting star?

Was there ever a time he had the ability and desire to, the mad man? Did he grow old? He missed that. He needed to be called back, through stars and skies, to his previous, blushing self. To find again his dancing days and doors to infinity.

There is no one to call him, but the companions, and they pass. He lives on, not murdered, not married. Intact and withered. Sleeping, but tired.

Not killed.

_reductio ad absurdum_

There is no River to kill the Doctor in the world where River kills the Doctor.

And Berlin is not the most romantic city of the world.

The other explanation? There is no world in which River does not love him.

And she who never was loves him never-after.


End file.
